/lit/ - Literature

>>19840472
Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder

>>19029417

Over the last 6 months or so I started experiencing loss of enjoyment or interest in doing things as well as depersonalization and derealization. Eventually, it progressed to the point that I was basically just watching myself perform actions without my input. During that time I read a variety of schizo literature and philosophy in bits and pieces and came to see myself as a chain linking the physical body I experience the material world through with the sensory information, emotions, urges, and thoughts that make up my mind, which is further linked to the conscious identity that makes decisions based on those inputs, which is generated at every instant by an awareness that precedes all else below it. I then came to experience that generating awareness or pure consciousness as an emanation of a vastly greater existence, whose relation to me is that of a dreamer and a character in his dream. After this point I almost totally lost the ability to take interest in things or express myself for a month or so. At the end I hit a point where I felt like even my connection to my own body and thoughts was fading and ended up at my desk, unable to move or think coherently, for maybe half an hour, though I lost track of time. Eventually, I entered a state from which I could observe the workings of my entire identity, my body, and my mind from an exterior perspective, rather than the top-down perspective of detachment, and I felt that I could modify each part at will if I so chose. In addition, the feeling that I was merely a character in the dream of something indescribably large was stronger than ever. I continued to observe rather than acting, and eventually I saw the body, with its natural urges and emotions which were now distant from me, seize hold of itself, and I sat up and exited the state I had been in. Afterwards, I felt as if I had been separated into two, with one controlling most actions, finding enjoyment and interest in things, thinking, perceiving, and feeling emotions, and the other letting it happen, eventually seeming to 'go to sleep' or hibernate inside the other. I retain the memories of this event but now only rarely reach an awareness of myself as multiple links in a chain, and I do not experience the feeling of watching my body move on its own anymore, except when I focus and will myself into feeling it, and that only momentarily.
I wonder what the state that I reached was, and if it's possible to reach via means other than losing attachment to myself. I wonder if remaining there longer would have any effects. Recently I've started looking into Jungian thought, the Upanishads, and Christian mysticism to explain and understand what I saw. The idea of a universal Self veiled in illusion doesn't match my experience - I clearly felt that I was separate from the one who dreamed me.
Anyone have reading recommendations for this kind of thing? Am I understanding anything or am I just becoming a schizophrenic?